2014 Precedent Charging Costs?

[deltahf]

Bought a used 2014 Precedent, my first electric cart!

Just curious, have any of you been able to calculate how much charging your electric carts costs you in terms of electricity? Obviously, this will vary based on local electric costs, but I'd be curious to hear any numbers or estimates if you guys have them.

[yawood]

Mine costs me nothing because I have enough solar panels that I recharge with my own generated power.

[hunter99]

I have a 2014 but I can't really say how much it costs. Looking at my power bills they really didn't change. What little they changed could easily be contributed to other things as well.

[rockfordpi]

Originally Posted by deltahf

Bought a used 2014 Precedent, my first electric cart!

Just curious, have any of you been able to calculate how much charging your electric carts costs you in terms of electricity? Obviously, this will vary based on local electric costs, but I'd be curious to hear any numbers or estimates if you guys have them.

Obviously It will depend on how far down the batteries are. We will assume a full discharge (which is a VERY BAD IDEA IN PRACTCE).In Alabama, we pay 8-10 cents per kilowatt hour. 1 kilowatt =1000 watts. Watts = amps * Volts.

First, I am not engineering the space shuttle here, so I am going to do a lot of rounding and guess-timating to simplify the math and research.

OK, An 8 volt crown CR-165 can provide 56 amps at 8 volts for roughly 120 minutes (actually, it is 117 but I am rounding that up to 120 minutes to make the math easier).

So, that is roughly 450 watts (56 amps * 8 volts ) per hour for 2 hours = 900 watt hours or .9 kwh (I am going to round that up to 1 kwh). If you have 6 batteries, you have to put 6 kwh back into the batteries to replace the energy removed.

Unfortunately, the input/output ratio is not 1 to 1, that is chargers and batteries are not 100% efficient as we have heat and other losses in the charging process. So, assuming the charging system is 80% efficient, we would need around 8.5 kwh hours to replace the 6 kwh taken out of the batteries. At 10 cents per KWH, that is 85 cents to recharge your cart. (is it amazing how much cheaper the power companies can produce energy than the petroleum companies)

Lots of variables here I have assumed away such as the ambient temperature and the condition of the batteries, etc.

Someone please double check my physics and math, it has been a while since I have done this.

[Mooncarter]

Not scientific. But I have charging a lot of carts for the past couple years and it must be very little. I can't even say I notice it.

[Sergio]

I think the number I have seen posted by Club Car is about 3.3kWh average per charge.

The figures that rockfordpi posted are pretty close but You would have to push the cart home as the 117 minutes runtime is until the batteries are completely dead.

The average price of kWh is between 10c and 12c (You can google your city for exact numbers).

[scottyb]

Mathematically it looks like it costs me $0.39 to charge a cart. Are these figures based upon transformer type chargers? Could there be a significant savings with the new PWM chargers?

[NoleFan4Ever]

The more efficient the charger the cheaper it would be. I know the old Power Drives would be lucky to be in the low 80's and the new ERIC chargers are supposed to be at 91%.

[WalterM6]

Here's a slightly different answer to the question. I just drove my cart to the grocery store. The total mileage was 2.84mi. When I recharged my batteries it took .91 KwH. Doing the math give you 3.12mi/KwH.

Going one step farther gasoline here is $2.20/gal. If you took the $2.20 and bought kilowatts instead you could buy 22 KwH based on 10 cents per KwH. 22 X 3.12= 68.64.
So the equivalent electric milage would be 68.64mi compared to the 15 to 20 miles you would get out of the gal of gas.

Your mileage may vary.